• The APRS Depot Project – Index
  Interesting APRS/Google Earth project
  (tags: aprs AmateurRadio hamradio tracking)

• Home of Monitoring Monthly – from Nice One Publishing Limited
  Read it on holidays. Some great information in there.
  (tags: radio ham hamradio listening)
• PCAle Controller
  (tags: PC-HFDL ALE software radio digital voice)

Got an SMS from Frances a short while ago, she was waiting for the power to go in advance of Hurricane Florence, the hatches are well and truly fastened, bath is full of water and plenty of ICE ready as well. Its estimated to hit about 13:00 Irish Time. Lets hope it doesn’t do too much damadge.

After recovering from jet-lag, with some seriously card-bending retail therapy in Toronto, we are heading for Ottawa. We should be there early this afternoon. Tropical Storm Ernesto is still having an effect on the weather, but we should see sunshine tomorrow.

• usmartdigi TNC
  (tags: aprs d-star packet digipeater tnc tracking tnc-x)

A cool link from EirePreneur. This is genuinely freaky, in a cool kind of way.

Yesterday afternoon I persuaded my wife and Sister in Law that a walk in the hills would be good for them (they may not be agreeing with me today), anyways, yesterday afternoon we headed for Lemybrien, and then into the Monavullagh Mountains, the goal, the cairn on Seefin.

I also took the oportunity to bring along a fully laden Radio Harness as I hadn’t had a chance to use it ‘in the field’ before now.

The views we were treated to were absolutely fantastic. I’ve been up Seefin twice before and was either fog or cloud bound on both occasions. This time we could see from the Wexford coast, down to Dungarvan, and around as far as the Galtees (and beyond). The only problem was the thick swarms of flies we encountered (lots of them).

First picture is of the Knockmealdowns, with the Galtee mountains (to the right) in the background.

Dungarvan Bay, Helvick Head & Dungarvan in the background, and me looking like a lost ozzie.

I was reading Bernards blog this morning and boy was I surprised. Then I wasn’t surprised, after all it is our government, we elected them, and a wise man once said “We get the government we deserve”. Then I did a bit of googling for an article based on a speech given by Dan Geer I read a few years ago, entitled privacy in the real world. I re-read it, because I remeber, at the time, I caused me to re-evaluate my thinking.

Now I’m just mad!

Have a read of http://www.digitalrights.ie for more background information.

I only just spotted this….

“The European Space Agency today donated a composite satellite image of global land cover provided by its Envisat satellite to the United Nations in Geneva, as a testimony to the current state of our planet, to be handed down to future generations.”

See the full article, and the 3MB picture here.

My iPOD’s (3rd Gen) battery capacity has been decreasing over time (no surprise there), but it finally dropped beyond what my patience would tolerate. A few months ago I was looking for a high capacity battery for a Kenwood TH-D7 and found one at Batteries America. While browsing their site, I came across their section for iPOD batteries. It would be difficult to go wrong for $30. So I ordered them.

Last night I got around to installing it. It is a ‘tough nut’ to open the case, but patience is a virtue and, after about 15 mins of cursing and swearing I did get it open and the battery installed. I did a slight bit of damadge to the plastic surrounding the dock connector when popping the case, but it all went back together and works fine.

After a short time charging, the obligatory “Road” test involved a short walk around Tramore listening to the delicate sounds of AC/DC. Calm is restored at last!